Commemorative Practices in Science
Historical Perspectives on the Politics of Collective Memory
Abir-Am, Pnina G. and Clark A. Elliot, editors Osiris, Volume 14: Commemorative Practices in Science. Distributed for University of Chicago Press Journals. 1999 Series: (OSR) Osiris. Reviewed in BJHS
, Isis.
Cloth ISBN 0-226-00092-3
Paper ISBN 0-226-00093-1
270 pp.
This volume breaks new ground in the study of how national culture, disciplinary tradition, epistemological choice, and political expediency affect the construction of collective memory and, then, how historians work with—and sometimes against—those constructions. Essays focus on a variety of commemorative rites, ranging from the quincentennial of Copernicus to the centennials of Pasteur, Darwin, and Planck; from the tercentenary of Harvard to the half centennial of Los Alamos; from the centennial of evolutionary theory to anniversaries of research schools in molecular biology.
Contributors include Clark A. Elliott, Owen Gingerich, Dieter Hoffmann, Dominque Pestre, Robert W. Seidel, and V. Betty Smocovitis.
- CHARLES S. MAIER: Preface
- PNINA ABIR-AM: Introduction
- OWEN GINGERICH: The Copernican Quinquecentennial and its Predecessors: Historical Insights and National Agendas
- CHRISTIANE SINDING: Claude Bernard and Louis Pasteur: Contrasting Images through Public Commemorations
- JOY HARVEY: A Focal Point for Feminism, Politics, and Science in France: The Clémence Royer Centennial Celebration of 1930
- DANIELA S. BARBERIS: Changing Practices of Commemoration in Neurology: Comparing Charcot’s 1925 and 1993 Centennials
- GEORGE E. HADDAD: Medicine and the Culture of Commemoration: Representing Robert Koch’s Discovery of the Tubercle Bacillus
- DIETER HOFFMANN: The Divided Centennial: The 1958 Max Planck Celebration(s) in Berlin
- CLARK A. ELLIOTT: The Tercentenary of Harvard University in 1936: The Scientific Dimension
- STANLEY GOLDBERG: The Enola Gay Affair: What Evidence Counts When We Commemorate Historical Events?
- ROBERT W. SEIDEL: The Golden Jubilees of Lawrence Berkeley and Los Alamos National Laboratories
- DOMINIQUE PESTRE: Commemorative Practices at CERN: Between Physicists’ Memories and Historians’ Narratives
- LILIANE BEAULIEU: Bourbaki’s Art of Memory
- MARA BELLER: Jocular Commemorations: The Copenhagen Spirit
- VASSILIKI BETTY SMOCOVITIS: The 1959 Darwin Centennial Celebration in America
- PNINA G. ABIR-AM: The First American and French Commemorations in Molecular Biology: From Collective Memory to Comparative History